A Broken Hallelujah
by JoBethMegAmy. my homegirls
Summary: Dr. Isles is brought to BPD while Detective Rizzoli is on leave, mourning the death of her husband. Naturally on her return, Jane is barely a shadow of the charismatic, fun-loving person Maura had heard so much about. Everybody assumes they know why this is. Maura becomes the first to learn all the reasons why, and is the first one who truly gets Jane Rizzoli. (slow burn Rizzles.)
1. Chapter 1

_She's back_.

Two simple words, seemingly on repeat all week, and yet there was no sign of her that Dr. Isles could see.

_Rizzoli's back!_

Detective Frost looked relieved. The Sergeant was somber. Detective Crowe seemed sour, for once. Things were usually tense at Boston Homicide as it were, but there was a noticeable change in the energy this week—or so it appeared to Maura Isles. People were nervous, flustered. They weren't sure what to do with themselves. Get rid of the papers, she won't want those. Do we put flowers on her desk? Don't make direct eye contact. Make sure the café is stocked with whatever she likes. No more cards. She doesn't like cards.

Maura's first day on the job felt like an eternity ago.

"_Korsak!"_

_"Lieutenant?"_

_ "Where the hell's Rizzoli?"_

_ "Lunch break—had to catch a Skype date with the hubby, you know Jane! Or y'know Casey, at any rate. Jane wouldn't dare miss another call after… well, anyhow!" He smiled brightly and extended a hand for the woman at Cavanaugh's side. "You must be our new medical examiner! Dr. Isles?"_

_ "Pleasure to meet you, Sergeant." _

_ "Likewise! You and me'll probably be spending a lot of time together. Frost's a bit of a wuss when it comes to autopsies," he said, clapping the shoulder of a nearby seated detective. "And Jane's usually not too hot on them herself. You'll like her, though, she's a fine gal!" _

_ Jane didn't come back in that day. She hadn't been in since. _

As she was wont to do, Maura had done as much research as possible on her future coworkers when she got the job in Boston. Two stories stood out about Jane Rizzoli: three years previously, she had been the recipient of BPD's Medal of Honor. The other story was far more frightening. She had been the target of a serial killer who was completely obsessed by her. After brutally attacking and nearly raping her, he'd been put in jail, only to escape and go after her again. That time, using a flare and then his own gun, Jane killed him.

Both news stories carried the same photo of Jane, wearing her uniform and frankly looking rather glamorous in Maura's opinion. She had one of the broadest smiles Maura had ever seen.

None of that was on display today.

At first, Maura didn't recognize her.

She had ducked into the restroom on the main floor, and there was a woman standing over one of the sinks, clutching either side. Her eyes were closed, her face was pale, and her knuckles were white. A small, dry sob sounded as though it had been wrenched from this woman's throat, and Maura's first instinct was to back out of the room. She felt as though she'd just invaded someone's privacy in their own home, but the sound of her heeled shoe stepping back grabbed the attention of the woman at the sink and their eyes met.

Maura's breath felt stolen.

"Are you all right?" she asked, sounding winded as she took a step forward. The moment the words escaped her, she realized who she was talking to. She realized what an imbecilic question it was.

Jane Rizzoli was in a sleeveless black dress, not a police uniform. Her bun was scraggly, not hidden beneath a formal hat. The dazzling smile Maura had found so endearing was nowhere in sight. The grief in her face was overtaken by confusion, as if she was wondering who exactly Maura was and where she got off asking a question like that.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Maura whispered, stepping closer though she really wasn't sure what her next course of action should be. "I'm… you're Detective Rizzoli, aren't you?"

"Yep," Jane said, staring back down at the sink. She half-heartedly turned one of the knobs, as if she could pretend this woman had just walked in on her about to wash her hands. "That's me." There was silence as she waited for the stranger to introduce herself, but the woman just stood there awkwardly as Jane turned off the sink and grabbed a paper towel. "You are…?" she prompted.

"Oh. Oh! I'm sorry. I'm Maura Isles, Chief Medical Examiner."

Jane raised her eyebrows, tossing the paper towel into the garbage bin over her shoulder. "You're pulling my leg."

Maura, whose hands were nowhere near Jane's leg, looked confused. "I'm sorry?"

There was just a hint of a smile. "You're the new M.E.?"

By now, "new" was a relative term, but not for Jane. "Yes."

"Huh. I was expecting some old, British lady for some reason."

Maura felt like she ought to take offense at that, but Jane appeared as though she was trying to be funny. Still, how did one respond to such a remark? "Well, I'm sure there is at least _one _old British woman out there with my name, but I can't say for certain she is a medical examiner."

Jane sniffed loudly, using her thumb to wipe away a tear that was falling from the corner of her eye. Her tone remained determinedly casual. "Is it a family name, or something?"

"I don't think so," Maura replied, having never asked why it was given to her. "It's an Anglicized variation on the name Maire."

"Mary?"

"No, Maire."

"Never heard it."

Maura sighed, starting to fidget. "Well, it's an Irish variation on Mary. It means 'bitter.'"

"Oh. Well, uh… I'm sure your parents didn't know that when they named you."

"I suppose not," Maura said with a shrug. "It _does _sound a bit old-fashioned now, doesn't it?"

"Ah, well. If it makes you feel any better, my middle name is Clementine. Don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Why not? It's a lovely name!"

Jane allowed herself to laugh weakly, leaning against the sink, and Maura smiled hesitantly back. "Sure doc, okay," she said.

Silence hung over them again, and Jane vaguely wondered if Dr. Isles was going to actually use the restroom or wash or hands or do whatever it was she'd come in here to do. Why was she just standing there like a scared rabbit? _Because you were crying when she came in, and she knows who you are. She knows what happened. She doesn't know how to bring it up, or if she should_. That was when Jane noticed that Dr. Isles' gaze had lowered to Jane's hand—her left hand. There was no ring.

Jane lifted her hand, and Maura immediately tried to look away, embarrassed to have been caught. "I never wore it on the job," she said. "Ever been married, Dr. Isles?"

"I haven't."

"Mm. Kinda weird getting used to a ring," Jane said thoughtfully. "I was chasing a perp once—I know I had it on when we left headquarters, and by the time I got back, I'd lost it somehow. Worst part of it is, he wound up getting away." She unconsciously rubbed her ring finger. "Got a new one later, but I always kept it off just in case I lost it again."

This was exactly the kind of interaction Maura dreaded. She knew she lacked the ability to say anything comforting, and to make things worse, she was nowhere near as comfortable talking to people she'd just met as Jane seemed to be. When did she get so sweaty? Why couldn't she think of a thing to say, and did Jane expect her to reply?

"Hey, I'm sorry," Jane muttered.

And now a recently widowed detective was apologizing to her. _Maura, you idiot, __say something__. _

"I'm gonna be tons of fun to be around, aren't I?" Jane asked dryly, and this time when she laughed, it was absolutely sour, as if she'd lost all hope.

"Don't say that," Maura whispered, and the quiet conviction in her tone got Jane to look at her. "Ever since I arrived here, detective, I've heard nothing but wonderful things about you. Your team thinks you are the top in your field. Lieutenant Cavanaugh said you're one of the best he's seen. Your brother absolutely worships you."

There returned that tremulous smile, like a scared kid peeking out from under the covers. "You know Frankie?"

"I've met him a few times now, yes," Maura said, smiling encouragingly. "He idolizes you, detective. I'm… I'm very much looking forward to working with you."

Jane's chin was quivering; she folded her arms to give herself some semblance of control and strength. "Thank you, doctor. Likewise. I'm, uh…" She gestured to her dress and flats. "Not starting today, not yet. I just have an appointment to speak with Cavanaugh. Make sure we're on the same page, and all that."

"Of course."

"So… I'll be seeing you around, doc." Jane cleared her throat and glanced in the mirror. Her eyes were still tinged with red, which she had really hoped to avoid. She didn't want the boys upstairs to see she'd been crying, even though part of her knew nobody would blame her. It still made her uncomfortable …but not as uncomfortable as staying in here with a woman who was clearly tense in her presence. "Think I look okay?" she asked, turning to look at Maura.

_I think you look like a woman who's just lost her husband. You look appropriately sad. That's not 'okay.' You don't look as though you're doing okay._

"No," Maura said softly.

Jane had meant in terms of her appearance, and was taken a bit by surprise with Maura's answer. "Huh," she said, looking in the mirror again. She straightened up, trying her best to look unruffled. Stepping past Maura for the door, she said, "Guess it'll have to do."

* * *

**A/N**: Hi, guys. So it occurred to me that I've never tried to do a slow burn in the canon setting, and I've also never shown Jane and Maura meeting for the first time in this setting. I'm curious to see how this goes. "Lonesome" will remain my updating priority, but I will try to regularly update this as well.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N**: Hey everyone- thanks for the feedback and follows, and thank you for your patience with my updating. And yeah, sorry that the site was down when I updated this! Hate when that happens.

* * *

It was two months before Detective Rizzoli and Dr. Isles had any significant interaction again.

Homicide hadn't had a case when Jane returned to work, and she spent her days in the office poring over cold files with Frost and Korsak. When a dead body finally came their way, Jane got stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic trying to get to the scene. She was a little miffed to discover that the body had been removed by the time she got there; Korsak had returned to BPD with it and Dr. Isles. Frost looked on nervously as Jane stalked around the scene like a jumpy cat.

"Fantastic," she muttered. "Not like it'd be important for me to see the _body_ here or anything."

"Jane, I tried to get her to wait," Frost said. "But she insisted that the longer the body was left here, the more scientific evidence would get lost. We got lots of pictures, don't worry."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jane grunted, waving her hand. "Just kinda pisses me off."

"I know."

"I've been gone for months and the first case we get, Dr. Isles decides I don't need to see the body at the crime scene!"

Frost's tone was placating. "Jane. She was just doing her job. She was being professional. Don't take it personally."

Jane huffed and rubbed her hands together; it was cold outside. "Yeah, I know. Sorry. Let me see those pictures."

When she finally got back to BPD, Jane fully intended to go down to the morgue for a look at the body and a chance to give Dr. Isles a bad time for removing it so hastily. Frost went up to the bullpen, and she punched the button on the elevator that would take her down. When the doors opened and she found herself on the bottom floor of the building, though, she was strangely immobile. The morgue was right down that hallway, a path she had walked down in the past with no qualms whatsoever. All right, maybe a _few _qualms—being in a room full of refrigerated dead people was a bit creepy, but at least she didn't upchuck like Frost.

The doors started closing, and Jane made no move to stop them. She let the elevator carry her back up to the main floor, where she got a desperately-needed coffee and took a look at the day's paper. Sitting a few tables over was Detective Crowe, who was sitting with a new officer and clearly trying to look like a bigshot.

"…our M.E. Like I mean, is it just a _given _that anyone in medicine is gonna be a total weirdo?"

"Hey, shut up," Jane said lightly from her table, though she seemed more invested in her crossword than Crowe. "Sanchez was cool."

"Yeah, he was all right, I guess," Crowe said. "Ole Dr. Death downstairs, though?" He lowered his voice, more addressing the officer at his desk than Jane. "I mean she's hot, but it's like she never shuts it off. Always yammering that medical gibberish, like a robot or something! A sexy robot, but still—d'you think she still does that google speak in bed? I bet she—"

Jane loudly cut in, still looking at her paper: "Wow, Crowe, bitter much?"

"What're you talking about, Rizzoli?"

"Just 'cause she's too smart to want to date you is no excuse to make fun of her."

Crowe rolled his eyes. "You spent more than two minutes with her? Since you've been back, you haven't been in a real case. Just exchanging files with her, right? And even then, she's probably working through her criminalist, sending her as a middleman." He snickered.

"What's your beef with Chang?" Jane asked heavily, now glaring at Crowe. Susie Chang was a little anxious, sure, a bit like a scared rabbit every time she was assigned to bring something to Jane—but she was efficient and polite. "She wouldn't sleep with you, either?"

"Why would I waste the time asking?" Crowe laughed. "I think it's pretty obvious she's a little hung up on her boss!" He held up his bent wrists in imitation of an eager, begging puppy. "_Oh, Dr. Isles, let me file that for you! Let me get your coffee! Let me lick your shoes! The test results are in… my pants!_"

The other cop burst out laughing, but Jane vaulted to her feet, tossing the paper loudly into the trash. "Wow! Way to keep things professional there, Crowe! It's a _thrill _to come back to work and discover that you haven't grown up at all in my absence. Thank God for that!"

Fuming at his never-ending awfulness, Jane stalked out of the café and nearly ran right into Frost.

"Whoa, Jane."

"Sorry, man, just trying to get upstairs."

"What's up?" Frost asked, noting her severely angered state. He looked over her shoulder and saw Crowe, who'd been leering at Jane behind her back. "Let me go have a word with that guy," he muttered, starting to roll up his sleeves.

Jane grabbed his arm, tugging him into the elevator. "Forget it, Frost, it's fine. Let's just get to work." The door was about to close on them before Jane stuck her leg out to stop it. Still grasping Frost's arm, she led the way to the stairwell at the end of the hallway. Once sure it was empty, she said, "Look, Frost. We haven't really had a chance to catch up since I've been gone. Really talk."

Frost nervously averted his gaze. He was expecting the worst, thinking Crowe might have taunted Jane about her widowhood, and Frost was ready to beat the stuffing out of him for it. But that was different from being prepared to talk through this, through her grief. Attending Casey's funeral was all he'd done; he hadn't known what to say in a note, though he'd agonized over writing one for days. There was a tacit sentiment there that Jane understood.

He wanted to comfort her, he just didn't know how.

So he was genuinely surprised when Jane folded her arms, leaned against the wall and asked, "What d'you make of the new M.E.?"

Frost folded his arms as well, quietly relieved at the seemingly safe subject. "Uh… well… she's…" He waved his hand. "Very precise. Y'know. Uh—likes things the way she likes them. I mean she _seems _nice. She _is _nice. Just a little odd. I get the feeling she's more into her work than spending time with people. _Living _people. Why? Did Crowe say something?"

Jane shrugged and looked away. "Yeah, you know. Just his usual douchebag routine. I kinda stood up for her out of principle, but it kinda made me think. I don't, uh …I really don't know her all that well. The longest conversation I've had with her was on my—it wasn't even my first day back. It was that day I came to talk with Cavanaugh about coming back."

"And?"

She sighed. "And… I guess I got the impression you did. Nice enough, but a little weird."

"You should've heard her at the crime scene," Frost chuckled, though admittedly murder wasn't very funny. "You saw those pictures. The blood spatter?"

"Yeah?"

"She refused to call it blood. Yeah," he said at Jane's incredulous expression. "She said until it had been tested at the lab, she didn't feel comfortable calling it anything more than a 'reddish-brown stain.'"

Jane wasn't sure if that was funny or sad, but she laughed anyway. "Are you serious? You're kidding."

"Nope."

"What's she think, he died and a can of marinara sauce spontaneously appeared and combusted?"

He grinned, happy to catch Jane's sense of humor in the rare instances where it surfaced these days. "I dunno, you'd have to ask her yourself."

"Or Susie, since she's the only one I ever seem to get through to," Jane snorted. She frowned when Frost looked like he wanted to laugh again. "Oh no, not you, too."

"What?"

"Crowe was going on with this gag about how he thinks Susie's in love with Dr. Isles, or something." When Frost's expression indicated he felt the same way, Jane lightly punched her arm. "Come on! What is it with guys, where they feel like they have to always—_pervert _relationships, friendships, between two women who are close and respect each other?"

"Hey, come on, Jane! It's just a joke."

"It's rude."

"Riley thinks it's there, too."

Jane rolled her eyes, and they heard a stairwell door open somewhere beneath them. "Wow, a woman who spends all her free time at Merch is fantasizing about other women? I'm shocked." She stiffened when she noticed Dr. Isles was the one walking up the stairs, and Frost turned to look as well. "Hi, doc."

Maura glanced up at them and froze for a moment, concerned that Jane was angry with her about the crime scene situation. But she kept walking, doing her best to smile. "Good morning, detectives!"

"Coming up for a coffee?" Frost asked.

"Actually, I was on my way to the bullpen."

"Elevator not working?"

Maura looked surprised. "Oh, I'm sure I don't know. I always take the stairs when I can. It's healthier. Did you know there was a study at the University Hospital in Geneva that showed over a course of merely twelve weeks, employees who only used the stairs increased their aerobic fitness by 9.2 percent? They also lost weight and significantly improved their blood pressure and cholesterol scores."

"Oh yeah, I did know that," Jane said flatly.

Frost was trying not to laugh, but Maura appeared pleased. "Really! Do you subscribe to the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation as well? That's how I learned about it!"

"Yeah, I never miss an issue. I especially love their cartoon caption contest."

"They have a cartoon caption contest?!" Maura asked excitedly.

It was only when Frost laughed and Jane's dead-serious expression also gave way to laughter that Maura realized Jane had been joking. She'd probably never even heard of that journal, let alone the study. As the detectives continued to laugh, Maura tried to figure out what the best response would be. Maybe if she joined in, it would seem like she'd been in on the joke the whole time—but too much time had passed now, and besides, she felt too wounded to feign amusement. This was the type of laughter she had grown up accustomed to: at her, not with her.

That hadn't actually bothered her in a long time.

"All those degrees hanging on your wall, and you can't catch sarcasm?" Jane laughed. "Geez, sorry." She cleared her throat, noting that Maura did not look at all amused. "I'm sorry. It's not everyone's thing, I guess."

"Given the nature of our jobs, Detective Rizzoli, I think it would behoove you to act a little more professionally in the workplace," Maura said curtly.

"Oh, you're gonna get on _me _about being professional?" Jane asked. Frost quietly saw himself out of the stairwell, and once the door had closed behind him, Jane went on, "Who prematurely removed the body from the crime scene before I could get there?"

"There was nothing premature about that decision! It would have been unprofessional of me if I _had _allowed it to wait for you," Maura said. "You saw the area, you know the body was getting subjected to the natural elements, and that surely would have compromised an increasing amount of scientific evidence! The body had to be preserved."

"The body," Jane muttered. _That sounds so cold. _"You got a name yet?"

Maura held up the manila folder she'd been carrying, and thrust it at Jane. "In here. I hope you find it useful reading."

With that, she turned to walk back downstairs, head held high. She kept expecting to hear Jane open the door to leave the stairwell, but no such sound came. When she reached the next landing, Maura looked back up, expecting to maybe see Jane looking through the folder.

Instead she saw Jane slumped against the wall, her confident stance gone slack. She held the folder limply by her side, closed, as her other hand massaged her forehead. If Maura squinted, she could swear it looked like Jane's shoulders were shaking, as if she were crying, or about to start. And guilt shot its way through Maura's veins like a poison.

_She's still grieving, and you snapped at her. Humor is a common defense mechanism; it's sure to be hers. You ought to have been more patient. You ought to have laughed it off. You ought to have at least acknowledged her pain, and stood up for yourself in a less abrasive way. You should apologize. _

It felt like willfully walking into a lion's den, but Maura forced herself to turn around and walk back up those stairs. At the sound of her returning footsteps, Jane quickly looked over, dry-eyed, but still embarrassed to be seen this way by Dr. Isles. Again. She straightened up, half-heartedly flipping open the folder when Maura reached her, but not actually looking at it.

"I know it's not the same," Maura said, "but would you like to come down and see the body now?"

With the gentle lilt in her tone, she made the invitation sound as personal and sweet as if she'd just asked Jane over for a drink after work. It was the only offer she felt she could genuinely make.

Staring at the floor, Jane hesitated. She felt a bit dizzy all of a sudden. "No," she finally said. "No thanks, it's all right." With her quick glance at Maura's findings just now, she had seen that their victim had been a soldier. She didn't want to go down there and face that. Even after saying that, Maura was still standing there though, as if waiting to be formally dismissed, or waiting for Jane to explain herself. Jane finally lifted her gaze to meet Maura's. "How'd you get into it?"

"I'm sorry?"

"I just…I'm just always curious what makes a person want to get into a job like yours," Jane said, slipping one hand into her pocket. She shrugged. "It's kinda morbid, isn't it? Cutting up dead bodies and stuff?"

"Is that all you think it is?" Maura asked. A few minutes ago, her tone might have come off as angrily defensive, offended. Now, it was curious, as if she was seeing her occupation through someone else's eyes for the first time. "Is that what my job is to you?"

Jane looked supremely uncomfortable, shifting her weight and wishing she hadn't said anything. "Well no, I mean I know you help, I just don't … I mean yeah, that's what you do, isn't it?"

"It's _part _of what I do, yes. And I can't speak for every medical examiner on the globe, but I for one didn't choose to come into this job for the opportunity to cut up dead bodies."

"Why did you, then? Why not just be a normal doctor?"

Maura smiled, and it felt like the first time Jane had seen that look on her face. Maura had in fact been smiling earlier, but Jane's vision had been clouded by her own anxiousness to tease, and she hadn't noticed. It was nice, she decided, to see someone talk about their passion. She wasn't accustomed to such innocent expressions in this building.

"I don't think there's really any such thing as a 'normal' doctor, Detective," Maura said. "A 'normal' or natural course of action would be to let a body try and repair itself on its own. Our bodies are often uniquely qualified to heal themselves of certain ills or injuries. A doctor steps in to help when that isn't enough. So really, there's nothing 'normal' about anything in this profession."

Jane saw where she was coming from, but wondered if Maura had really understood her question. "Yeah, but a _regular _doctor saves lives. My best friend growing up, her dad was a doctor, and he said he got a high from saving his patients. And that makes sense to me. Why did you choose to work with patients who are already dead?"

The morbidity of her job was not lost on Maura, and she had been asked about it a lot in the distant past. Once she'd built up a significant reputation, however, people naturally stopped questioning her and just admired what she did. Jane's blunt inquiries were a bit of a change of pace.

"Well detective, I don't see them as patients. I see them as people. People whose families I can help bring closure to. People who won't ever mock me, or make fun of me. I can speak for them. I can speak for the dead."

Their last medical examiner had been a bit of a clown, and while he was very good at his job, he'd never spoken to Jane seriously about it. She had not ever heard a description of it as eloquent as those last words out of Maura's mouth, even if the first ones felt a bit sad. Even pathetic. They caught up with Jane, and she felt badly for having mocked her earlier.

"Look, doc," she sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Sorry for giving you a bad time, earlier."

"You mean when you were making fun of me, or when you snapped at me for doing my job?"

"I—both, I guess. I'm…" She lowered her voice, even though nobody else was around. "Surfing the crimson wave at the moment." Maura appeared totally lost, and Jane could imagine the doctor trying to think if she'd heard of any beaches in Boston with red water. "You know?" she said slowly. "I have a female visitor. _It's that time of the month_."

"Oh! You're menstruating?"

"Geez," Jane laughed, blushing a little.

"Don't tell me you're a grown woman and embarrassed to be on your period."

"God, no! It's that word, it's just… blegh." She shivered.

"What, menstruating?"

"Yes!"

"I suppose I can see how it might be somewhat unappealing for some people to say, but I don't understand society's need to create endless euphemisms for entirely natural things," Maura said. "If you know the words, Jane, you ought to use them."

Jane rested her hand on the doorknob, initiating the end of their conversation. "Yeah, well, that's one man's opinion."

"Or one _woman's_ opinion, as the case may be."

Rolling her eyes, Jane opened the door. "Got it. Maura Isles, Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Lieutenant-in-Command of the P.C. Police."

As she headed back down the stairs, Maura was trying to figure out if that last exchange had canceled out the progress she felt they'd been making.

_ Smartass. _

* * *

**A/N**:I definitely understand the appeal in having Jane and Maura get along right away, and I can see how it could happen, but especially given the flashback we saw I really don't think they'd get on instantly. Maura's gotten a little bullied in the writing in the last couple of seasons, and if she and Jane weren't already friends, I don't think she'd stand for it. So they're going to have a bit of a bumpy road here at first.

In the meantime, I'd love to know what you're thinking.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N**: "You know, **people make fun of you behind your back_._**" "Oh, yeah? Well they call you **a bitch **behind yours."  
This chapter and the last one were sort of intended to get at the plausible reality behind this canon exchange.

* * *

Nothing about the case was jumping out at them, but Frost's suggestion to use Jane's favorite old C.I. got the wheels turning. Jane wasn't sure if she was wary or excited to see Rondo; she hadn't seen him since Casey's death, and it dawned on her that she wasn't even sure if he knew what had happened. She couldn't for the life of her imagine Rondo in a serious or somber situation. He was so… goofy. Which of course, was what she loved about him.

Maybe it would be nice to have him around. She felt like she hadn't had a good, honest laugh in months.

As soon as he came to the café, he made a beeline for Jane, looking somber with his arms wide open for a hug. Jane smiled and swerved away, extending a hand for him to shake instead.

"Hey man, you know I don't do hugs," she said.

Rondo grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her into a one-armed embrace, thumping her back. He smelled fairly awful, but that thought pushed past Jane when he said into her ear, "Your partner let me in on what happened to your man. I can't do funerals, Vanilla. Just can't do 'em. But Rondo's here for you, baby, okay? You ever wanna talk, you let me know. But if you wanna just move past it, talk the case? We can do that to, no problem."

He finally let her pull away, and Jane smiled bracingly at him. "Thanks, Rondo. Let's talk shop, okay?"

"Okay." He wasn't surprised, really; he could tell Jane was the type who preferred distractions over dealing with her feelings. So he followed her to one of the café's tables, where she had a bagel and coffee waiting for him. "Your first case back at BPD? I wanna do anything I can to help you, Vanilla."

"Great. So I—"

"But first you gotta answer me one little question, okay?" That took Jane a little off-guard, and Rondo saw a glimpse of vulnerability cross her face before defensiveness set it, and he realized she probably thought he was going to ask about Casey. Instead, he nodded at someone behind Jane. _Let's see if we can make this girl laugh._ "Who's that fine little Strawberry talkin' to your brother over there?"

Jane turned to see Frankie chatting with Dr. Isles, and she briefly wondered how close their relationship was. Frankie was standing tall, and it looked as though he was trying to suck in what little gut he had, and Dr. Isles was all smiles. _Hey, that rhymed. Wait, what? _

"That's just our new M.E., Rondo."

"She and your bro doin' in the deed?"

"No!" she hissed. Surely they wouldn't do something so unprofessional …_and surely Frankie could never manage to land someone that gorgeous_.

"So she's single?"

"I don't kn—Rondo! The case. Come on!"

Maura went down to the morgue a few moments later, allowing Rondo to give Jane his undivided attention. They talked things over for about fifteen minutes, then Jane sent him on his way with another bagel and a twenty-dollar-bill in his pocket. Jane sighed, trying to collect her thoughts and praying that Rondo could help get them a clue. He had only been gone a second when Frankie took his seat.

"Hey sis," he said, giving her arm a light tap. "Think he can help?"

Jane shrugged. "We can only hope."

There was something a little off in her tone. She had expressed sentiments like this during grueling cases before, but there had always been at least a conviction behind them, a determination to get to the bottom of it all. Frankie had always taken it for granted—Jane sounded defeated now, as if she truly thought the outlook was hopeless. It was hard to tell whether that was honestly her opinion about the case, or if it was just her own personal gloom seeping through. Either way, he didn't dare insult her by asking.

"Hey. I know what'd cheer you up a bit! Let's go mess with Stanley, huh?"

The prospect at least got a grin out of Jane, and the siblings got up in unison to harass the crotchety man who ran the café. He eyed them suspiciously the entire time they were at the counter, and it wasn't until he was busy ringing up another customer that Frankie quickly switched out a grape jelly packet for a strawberry one.

"Stan, look!" Frankie gasped. "Aw, man! You've got different jellies fraternizing, here!"

Stanley looked over and shut the register before giving his customer proper change. As he hurried to reform his respective red and purple jelly sections, he saw Jane out of the corner of his eye, rearranging the salt and pepper shakers.

"Stop that!" he snapped.

"Oh, I didn't know it bothered you; I was just trying to have a little fun. I'm sorry." As Stanley grumbled his way back to the register and an annoyed customer, Jane said under her breath to Frankie, "I'm not sorry."

His laugh was drowned out by a sharp, female voice that came cutting across the room. "Detective Rizzoli!" Jane and Frankie both looked up to see Maura Isles stalking towards them, looking as if she had just caught a hit-and-run driver trying to leave the scene.

"What's up, doc?" Jane asked breezily.

"Do you find it amusing to poke fun at people with anxiety disorders?" Maura asked.

"Uh…" Jane looked over at Frankie, who shrugged back at her. This felt like a trick question. "No?"

"Oh, really? Because your behavior would indicate otherwise. Obsessive-compulsive _disorder _is an illness that affects approximately 2.2 million adults in the United States, including Stanley!" Maura said, now taking on the tone of a disapproving mother scolding her children. "When you deliberately go out of your way to disrupt his routine, that is cruel and uncalled for."

"_He's_ cruel and uncalled for," Jane shot back, though she was careful to keep her voice low enough that only Frankie and Maura would hear her (or so she thought). "Maybe you haven't been around long enough to know it, doctor, but Stanley's kind of a jackass."

"I heard that, Rizzoli!" he yelled.

"Disliking him doesn't give you the grounds to mock his disorder," Maura said. "Which I've been around long enough to know he has. Frankie, I know your sister's approval is more important to you than anything, but I'm very disappointed that a man as sweet as you are would engage in such thoughtlessly cruel behavior out of fear of being ostracized."

Stanley spoke up from the register: "I'm not surprised! Neither of them ever completed their sensitivity training!"

"Well, that explains it!" Maura scoffed. "I'm going to go have a word about that with Lieutenant Cavanaugh right now!"

Sufficiently humbled, Frankie stayed back while Maura headed for the stairwell, but Jane wasn't shy about going after her. "Are you _serious_?" she muttered, stepping in Maura's way and all but grabbing her arm. "I'm in the middle of an investigation right now, and I don't have time for that crap! You need to _relax_. It was just a laugh! Nobody got hurt!"

"Not physically, no," Maura said. "But the whole point of sensitivity training is to prevent people from causing pain that _isn't _obvious to the eye. My God, I'd think someone who…"

She abruptly cut herself off, and with one more sour look at Jane, tried to get on her way. But Jane stepped in front of her again. "No, wait. Someone who what?"

"_I _completed the sensitivity training, and it wasn't even required of me," Maura said.

"Big whoop! You work with dead people! I hope I'm not the first to break it to you, but _they don't have feelings, Dr. Isles_. The people they leave behind do. Those are the messes that _I _have to clean up. What were you going to say?"

"That's just my point, it would have been insensitive, and I censored myself appropriately."

"I don't bruise easily. You have my permission to speak whatever the hell was on your mind in the moment."

Maura pursed her lips and looked back at Jane, trying to temper her feelings. How did she get riled up so fast? She took a moment to try and calm herself down, but it was mostly in vain. At least she got her voice to lower as she said, "I thought that someone who's gone through what _you _have recently would know that physical pain isn't the only kind that counts."

Jane didn't look angry or particularly offended, but there was definitely surprise evident in her face.

"Oh-ho! And the purple latex gloves come off! Did you just compare my grieving process to Stanley's O.C.D?"

"No, not intentionally," Maura replied, and Jane's eyebrows went higher. "I just mean—I know we see a lot of blood on the job, detective. A lot of physical injuries. Maybe you're accustomed to that. That shouldn't numb you to the inherent malice of mocking other people's mental anxieties."

"Geez! If you—what, you want me to go apologize to the old crocker? I don't need to go through 'sensitivity training' and get their gay certificate to do that." She noticed Maura's expression anger a bit at her use of the word "gay," and she hastened to explain: "Not 'gay' like stupid. The certificate comes with a rainbow on it."

Maura feigned a sweet smile. "Well, Jane, I'll hope you can find a nice frame to go with it once you've gotten it." She swiftly went through the door and headed up the stairs.

Jane banged the door open. "Okay, first of all!" she said, aggressively pointing up at Maura, who had stopped to look at her, "it's Detective Rizzoli, all right? And second of all, careful how sit up there in Cavanaugh's office—it might dislodge the stick in your ass, and that'd wrinkle your dress, which I'm sure would be your O.C.D. version of hell!"

She slammed the door before Maura had a chance to retort. She passed Frankie on her way outside, telling him she was taking an early lunch.

Several hours later, Maura's words—or more accurately, her anger—still rang in Jane's head. Every time her day came to a lull, she found herself thinking of their heated exchange, and guilt started to pool in the pit of her stomach. At first she was fiercely convinced of her own innocence, strongly feeling that Maura had overreacted and been way, _way _too sensitive about the whole thing. But the more time passed, the more she was able to appreciate where Maura had been coming from. Accordingly, she felt worse and worse.

Apologizing came as naturally to Jane as swallowing back her own vomit, but when it was time to call it a night, she knew that an apology was long overdue.

She'd actually made it into her car before deciding she wouldn't sleep well without at last trying to express some of her regret.

Swallowing her own anxieties, Jane went down to the bottom floor. Glancing into the morgue, she saw the lights were on, but no people were in sight, living or dead. Feeling assured that their victim's body was sealed away, Jane walked across the empty morgue, over to Maura's closed door. The light was on inside in. Before Jane could lose her nerve, she knocked.

"Come in."

Maura was clearly surprised to see Jane step inside, and Jane looked equally unaware of why she had come here. For a few moments she hesitated by the doorway, kneading her hands, looking like a girl who'd accidentally stumbled into a boys' locker room in school. More to alleviate the awkwardness than anything, Maura indicated the other chair in her office, and Jane eyed it warily. It looked more like a piece of modern art than furniture, and she couldn't help making a face as she sat down.

"Uncomfortable?" Maura asked flatly.

"A bit," Jane admitted. "But that's only partially the so-called chair's fault."

"It's a Karim Rashid Label!"

Jane leaned back and sighed. "In that case, it's like the gentle caress of a mother's hand."

Maura barely refrained from rolling her eyes. "Your parasympathetic nerve is in overdrive. It's a protective mechanism."

"Because I don't like your office?" Jane snorted. She knocked her first against the hard top of the chair and missed Maura's scowl. "Do taxpayers pay for this?"

"Of course not," Maura muttered. "Detective, was there something you wanted, or did you just come down here to taunt my taste in furnishings?"

"Nah, that was just a fringe benefit," Jane said, leaning forward. Maura did not look amused, and Jane's smirk faded quickly. Her gaze dropped to the floor. "I came down here to…" She faltered, and a long silence fell between them. Maura didn't want to get her hopes up for an apology, and she certainly wasn't going to force anything. Jane had to keep going on her own. "When I was in eighth grade, I got a three-day suspension for punching a kid. And… kicking him in the nuts." She glanced at Maura. Nothing. "You don't look surprised."

"I'm not."

"Well, okay then!"

If anything, Maura seemed surprised by Jane's surprise at her lack of reaction. "You have a reputation, detective. For being physically aggressive. It makes sense that that would date back to your adolescence."

Jane laughed uneasily. "Ha. Yeah. Well anyway, I beat up the kid 'cause he was making fun of my brother, Tommy. You wouldn't have met him. Anyway, he's… dyslexic, and he had a hard time in school because of it. And he got picked on for it, and so I… reacted. Only got caught the one time, hence the one suspension. But I had to get the message across to a lot of guys. After that spell, nobody messed with either of my brothers."

Another silence settled as Maura tried to process this. It wasn't quite an apology, and definitely not a direct one, but it seemed to be opening the gates for admission of wrongdoing.

"What sorts of things would people do to your brother?"

This wasn't exactly where Jane had expected the conversation to go, and now she was trying to remember the taunts she'd witnessed and the ones Tommy had told her about. "Well… kid stuff, y'know. They'd kinda stick their lips out and go like this, y'know?" she said, holding her index finger up to her mouth and pretending to flip it. "Pretend they were talking to him, and ask why he didn't answer them. And they'd call him a moron, special ed, stuff like that. One guy—the one I got suspended over—he sent Tommy all these so-called word games in gibberish, and told him if he didn't solve them he was gonna beat him up. So I beat the guy to it."

"That sounds terrible."

"I heard him cry about it once. He was kind of a momma's boy, and he just kind of lost it one day. I think he let those jerks get to him, and he thought he really _was _stupid, 'cause of this… thing. This thing he had that he couldn't help."

"Was Tommy a nice kid?"

Jane grinned, trying to decide whether or not to mention that he was in sitting in prison at the moment. That'd probably shake Dr. Isles right up. "Yeah. Yeah, he was a nice enough boy."

"Stanley hasn't got any siblings, J… detective. And as I'm sure you've noticed, he doesn't have many friends, either. Nobody to fight for him. That was why I couldn't just stand idly by while you and Frankie pulled a childish prank that exploited his obvious insecurities."

Shame. There went that other emotion, hand in hand with guilt, falling over Jane like a blanket. "That's why I needed to apologize."

"Stanley's the one who needs an apology, detective. Not me."

"I'm working my way up to him," Jane said, and she felt encouraged when she saw Maura fighting a smile. "You're the one who stood up for the guy when you didn't have to." _Meanwhile_, _God help me, I'm no better than Crowe_.

"Well, the best way you can make it up to me is by apologizing to him tomorrow."

"I'll do my best, doc," Jane said, getting to her feet.

Maura remained seated. "Detective."

"Yes, doctor?"

"You can just call me Maura."

Jane looked away for a moment, rubbing the back of her neck. Then she stepped forward and swung her hand out for Maura to shake. "Jane."

* * *

**A/N**: Just some ground-work here, folks. Coming up: why Jane used/uses her maiden name, Maura's childhood, further attempts at tolerating each other in the workplace, all building up to friendship .../more.

Thank you for all of your support/feedback. It's always appreciated :)


	4. Chapter 4

"Test results are in."

Korsak, Frost, and Jane looked up to see Maura standing in the middle of the bullpen. Dressed in teal shirt and pencil skirt that had probably cost more than Jane's car, Maura looked about as out of place on their dingy floor as an angel fish might look in a swamp. She seemed entirely unbothered by her surroundings as she handed the folder to Korsak.

"I'll be damned," he muttered. "Good catch, doc."

Frost got up to look while Jane remained seated, looking at Maura. "What is it?"

"A small nick on the back of his occipital area," Maura said. "I was able to secure a relatively tiny amount of blood, and while I can't tell you whose it is, I _can _conclusively say it did not belong to our victim. Do you have any main suspects you might be able to compare it to?"

Frost nodded at a pair of pictures they had pinned on the board. "His brother Darryl, his girlfriend Willa Howard, and his best friend, Rick Tanner. We'll have to get creative about getting their DNA, though."

"Ah, we can do it," Korsak said confidently.

"Sure," Jane said. "What if—"

Maura cut her off: "I don't like sentences that start with 'what if.'"

"Okay. Let's assume—"

"How is that any better?"

Jane stared at her incredulously, and Frost and Korsak exchanged a nervous look. "Maura? What—look. Your thing is science, I get that. That's your job. Thank you for providing us with some very helpful information. But if it's gonna give you hives to listen to us _theorize_, a.k.a _our _job? You don't need to listen. You're not an investigator. You don't have to stay."

Noticing Maura's somewhat embarrassed fidgeting, Korsak said, "Hey, doc." He genially clapped her on the shoulder, and she looked startled at the unexpected contact. "You got a right to see how your hard work pays off, but that means when you're up here, you follow our lead, okay?"

"And right now, we think our lead is Tanner, the best friend," Jane said.

"Why?" Maura asked innocently.

"Well, it looks to us like he had his eye on our victim's girl. Motive enough to kill." She glanced up at Maura, who looked doubtful. "What, you never liked the same guy as your best friend?"

She shrugged. "No."

"Did you ever _have _a best friend?"

Maura thought about it for a moment, then looked down to catch Jane's gaze. "No."

Jane wasn't really sure what to make of that. Were she talking to anyone else, she would've assumed they were joking, but it didn't seem to be in Dr. Isles' nature to do that. It had of course always been an integral part of Jane's, and she found it was where her mind went in a scramble to reply.

"You'd tell us if you were a cyborg, right?"

Turning to leave, Maura thoughtfully said, "No, I don't think I would."

* * *

That night, Jane found herself thinking of Maura away from the office for the first time. Initially, the evening was fairly routine.

She got to her complex, but before going to her own apartment, stopped at her neighbor's first. Marissa was a law student who generally kept to herself, and made a little pocket money here and there walking people's dogs. The Jones-Rizzoli's had been longtime customers, and on days when she could swing it, Marissa would keep Jo in her own apartment if Jane had long hours. Jo liked her well enough, but always definitely looked ready to leave when Jane showed up.

"How's my girl?" Jane asked, stooping down to pick up Jo Friday. "Aww, you're okay, aren't ya?"

"How've you been?" Marissa asked.

"Ah, you know. Okay. School?"

With a one-sided grin, Marissa shrugged. "Ah, y'know. Okay." Jane smiled back, absently scratching Jo behind the ears. "Work's been all right for you, I guess? I haven't heard any vacuuming from your apartment lately."

"Ha," Jane snorted. "Yeah, I… thanks for reminding me to get on that. Guess it's been a while, huh?"

Marissa smiled uncomfortably and shrugged again, figuring she shouldn't have brought it up. Jane thanked her for watching Jo and finally went to her own apartment. As soon as Jane set her down, Jo easily maneuvered her way through the mess on the floor to the little doggie bed that had wound up squished between the wall and a mostly-empty bookshelf.

Jane flipped on the TV and threw a frozen dinner into the microwave. As it heated up, she grabbed the remote and flipped through the channels, trying to find something she could feasibly amuse herself with while she ate. But nothing stood out. Not even a game sounded enticing. When the microwave beeped at her, she shut off the television and suddenly realized how quiet the apartment was without it.

But maybe she needed that tonight. Maybe she could think.

And the first thing she thought about as she sat down with her thawed chicken parm and bottle of beer was Maura Isles.

She claimed not to have a best friend…did she have any friends to speak of, at all? Probably. She was probably part of a close-knit group of maybe three or four. She'd be the quirky one, the smart one. She'd said she wasn't married, and never had been. Did she have a boyfriend? Maybe she liked being single. Maybe she dated a lot. Jane couldn't imagine somebody that beautiful and that well-off going too long without an interested man at her side …or in her bed. If her taste in clothes and office décor were any indication, Maura lived in a really nice place. It was probably immaculately kept, just like her office. The perfect gathering place for get-togethers with her equally wealthy friends.

Jane imagined Maura's was a very full life, rich in every meaning of the word.

There was a knock at the door.

Looking through the peephole, Jane barely kept in a sigh at the sight of her mother. "Ma?"

"Jane? Open up!"

"You gotta make a promise to me first."

"Okay, what?"

"You can't say a word about the mess, got it? Nothing." There was a long silence. "Goodnight, Ma."

"No, Jane—I promise. Just please, let me in."

Jane opened the door. "Okay, come in before I regret this." Almost in the same breath, when she saw Angela's expression, she sighed, "Never mind. I already do."

But Angela kept true to her word, and didn't say a thing about the mess. True she practically had to put a hand to her mouth to prevent it, but she stayed physically tight-lipped as Jane shut the door after her.

_This is just the way it looked right after he died. You haven't cleaned up a thing. This is a hovel even your dog's too good for. It's disgusting. There's no excuse for it. If you let things keep piling up, it's only going to depress you more. None of this is going to help, can't you see that?_

When Angela's eyes had made a sweep of the entire living room and kitchen, she asked, "Where are the pictures?"

"Ma."

"It's not about the mess, Jane. Where are the pictures?"

"Had to take 'em down," Jane muttered, passing Angela and going to sit at the kitchen table again. She stabbed what remained of her now-cold parm, wielding her fork as if it were something a bit more lethal. "Place looked like a freakin' mausoleum when I had them up."

"So what, they're just shut up in a box somewhere now? Collecting dust?"

"They're in one of my drawers," Jane said, using her fork to point behind her. "You're welcome to go take a look and see for yourself."

"It hardly seems respectful," Angela said quietly.

"It's what I need right now, Ma," Jane replied. Her voice was gruffer than usual; she was on the defense. She knew her mother wouldn't approve of walking into the apartment Jane had once shared with her husband and seeing that there were no longer any photos of him and Jane together. But her mother wasn't the person who had to live here. "And yeah, I know," she said through one last mouthful, leaning back in her chair and looking up at Angela. "It's a pig sty. That shouldn't surprise you—you know Casey's the one who cleaned up."

Angela's voice was uncharacteristically small. Jane realized that for once, maybe her mother was afraid of offending her. "Casey was gone a lot of the time."

"And this place was a mess most of that time," Jane said. "You just never saw it. The only time you came over was when Casey was here, and this was _our _place. So you only ever saw it when he'd had a chance to do his thing and de-clutter it."

It was true. Jane wasn't much of a hostess, and when Casey was in the Middle East, she would get in her family time by having dinner at her parents' house on Sunday nights. That generally kept Angela from coming by for a surprise inspection.

"Ma? What'd you come over for?"

Slowly sitting herself opposite Jane, Angela asked, "I can't just come by to see my daughter?"

"You _can…_only I know you, and I can tell something's up." Angela, who was never one to shy away from eye contact, was averting her gaze. Jane's expression softened, and she reached across the table to take her mother's hand. "Is it about Pop?"

"Not exactly. Well, sort of. He got an offer on the house."

"Already?"

"Yes. I know, it came as a surprise to us, too. A _real _surprise to me when I came home from lunch with Carla and your father was practically ready to sign it over right then and there to this family."

"Ma! Come on, how could he not have included you?"

"He's a changed man, Jane. I know you worship him, but he's not the man either of us knew. I have a lot of memories in that house," she said weakly, grasping Jane's hand tighter. "Maybe men just aren't sentimental, I don't know. But he wants to move someplace smaller and I can't afford to stay there. I don't—I don't know where to go. I haven't wanted to think about it."

"Ma, you can stay here until you find a place. I mean, I know it'll drive you crazy, but…"

"_I'll _go crazy, or _you _would?" Angela asked, and they both took the moment to laugh. "In all seriousness, Jane. Carla offered me their guest room until I find someplace else, but if you need or want me here—"

"No, Ma, it's fine," Jane cut her off. "I—I swear I'm just thinking of you here. I don't have a lot of space. My habits are gonna drive you nuts. I've lived by myself a long time and I'm used to it being the way it is. The Tolluci's have a nice house, and you and Carla could hang out all the time. You won't… take it personally, will you?"

"Of course not. I only gave you life and spent half of it raising you. Why should I expect you to help out?"

"Ma, believe it or not, I've been _trying _to help out by running interference with Pop. God, if anything, I'd think _you _would be the one trying to let me down easy by preferring Carla's place over _this _dump."

Angela looked mournfully around the cluttered place, appearing as though the sight of it physically pained her. "It doesn't _have _to be a dump, you know. You could clean up anytime you felt like it."

"Thanks for the tip, Ma. I'll log that one away."

Jane regretted the sharpness in her tone, and reminded herself of the grief her mother was currently going through. About two months before Casey had died, it had come to light that Frank had a mistress, and Angela decided that adultery was a sin worse than divorce. She wanted out. Casey's funeral and the few days around it had been the only times since that Frank and Angela had been together; he'd been living in a new place with his new girl ever since the affair had come to light. With Tommy in prison, the impending divorce, and the loss of Jane's husband, this hadn't exactly been a banner year for the Rizzoli's.

Each of them were grieving in their own ways, for each other, and for their own reasons.

Emotionally exhausted, Angela spent the night. Jane offered her the bed while she herself took the couch, falling asleep to some old movie while Jo curled up next to her best she could.

She woke up the next morning to the smell of eggs and bacon. Jo barked, and somebody shushed her. Jane was so tired she could hardly get her eyes open, but her sense of smell was wide awake. A smile slowly unfurled on her face as she breathed in deep the scent that reminded her of family, of happy mornings, of solidarity.

For one brief moment, she thought, _Casey?_

But then she sat up and her reality returned. She hadn't slept on the couch because of a fight. She'd slept there because her mother was here. Casey was gone and never coming back, never cooking for her again.

"Good morning, my Sleeping Beauty," Angela called from the kitchen when she saw Jane sitting up. "Sleep okay?"

"Not bad. You?"

Angela just nodded. It was hard for her not to think of the last time she'd slept over here.

_"Ma, it's fine. You don't have to—"_

_ "I know I don't have to, but my girl's getting married tomorrow, and this won't be a bachelorette pad for long!" She forced her way through the door, sleeping bag in tow. "Casey's a stand-up guy for wanting to marry you before he moved in."_

_ "Yeah Ma, sure. He's a real gentleman."_

_ "How can you be so sarcastic about this? How come you're not more excited?! You're getting _married_, Jane! This is life-changing, do you realize that?"_

_ "Yes, as a matter of fact, it did occur to me. It's changing my life and Casey's life. That doesn't mean you need to freak out over getting involved!" _

_ "I just wanted to spend some time with you on your last night as a single woman!" Angela laughed, forcing Jane to hug her. Jane halfheartedly returned it, trying to put on her best game face. "I'm so happy you're doing this, Jane. Marriage is such a beautiful thing. Your father and I couldn't be prouder of you for finally …well, we're just glad that you're not gonna be alone forever."_

"Ma."

Angela stirred out of her reverie. "Hm?"

Jane had slid her wallet across the counter. Confused, Angela opened it. Jane said, "Behind my driver's license."

Curiously, Angela shifted the license free of its pouch. There was a small black-and-white picture that had clearly been ripped off the top of a photo booth strip. There was Jane, maybe fourteen or fifteen, and Casey, a high school senior. Though it was a crammed space, the two of them weren't touching. Jane was laughing, slumped on her side of the booth while Casey made a face and flexed on his. Angela finally smiled.

"I've never seen this."

"Nobody has, except him and me," Jane said, taking it and her wallet back. "That was up at the state championship—St. Dominic's hockey team. Casey was the captain. There were all these booths and food carts outside the rink, and I… I guess the team was trying to show school spirit by goofing around. I laughed 'cause I thought they were funny, and Casey pulled me into the photo booth. Just trying to make my day, I guess."

"Maybe he had a crush on you, even then."

Jane laughed and flipped the wallet shut. "Nah. I'm the one who was crushing on him in those days."

She didn't say anything more about the picture, and though Angela had more questions, she refrained from asking them. Part of it felt like justification for not having framed photos up in the apartment anymore, as if Jane wanted to at least show that she still thought of her husband enough to keep him with her. That would have to be enough.

When Jane got to work later that day, she declined Frankie and Frost's invitation to join them in the café for breakfast, explaining that she'd already had breakfast with Angela.

"Hey, how's your mom doing?" Frost asked Frankie as Jane walked towards the elevators.

"Not so good. They put their house on the market a while ago, and it'll probably go soon. My dad's already got a new living situation lined up of course," he said with a scowl. "But Ma hasn't got long-term plans yet. I'm worried about her, Frost. And I don't like that. Kids shouldn't have to worry about their parents, right? But she's lived in that house most of her life, and…"

Frost patted him on the back. "I'm sorry, man. That's rough."

"Tell me about it. I don't suppose you know anyone in your area looking for a roommate who matches my mother's description?"

They both looked up when Maura stopped at their table. "Did I hear correctly that your mother needs a place to live?"


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N**: Wow, I think that's the longest I've gone without updating something in a while. So sorry - things were just getting hectic on my end, and I've been working more on the '50s AU. But I definitely haven't stopped thinking about this one, and I promise not to go that long without an update for a while. I hope you enjoy this installment.

* * *

"No."

"Jane."

"No!"

"What? What's the problem?"

"It's inappropriate."

"How?!"

"For _real_, Frankie? I work with this woman! Ma can't just go be—I dunno, her sleepover buddy—"

"Sleepover? Really? _Jane, our mother doesn't have a place to live anymore_. My apartment's too small, you and Ma would kill each other within a week, and so far as I know, she hasn't committed any crimes lately, so she can't exactly share a bunk with Tommy. Uncle Rob lives too far away from Boston, and Gina doesn't have the space. Carla Tollucci's husband smokes in the house, and Ma can't stand that. She's only staying in their guest room for now because he's out of town on business this month."

Jane leaned wearily against the wall of the break room. It was clear that Frankie had anticipated she would be uncomfortable with the notion of their mother living in the home of BPD's Medical Examiner; this was obviously a rehearsed explanation of why Angela didn't have very many other options.

"Look," he went on. "The fact that they know each other is purely coincidence, but—"

"Wait, what d'you mean they know each other? Have they… what, been hanging out?"

Frankie rolled his eyes. "Jane, you know Ma's been working around here part-time at the café. But anyway, I know she's chatted up Dr. Isles a bit while they've both been here. And you know, now that the divorce proceedings are done, she's trying to negotiate something a little more full time."

With a little more aggression than was probably necessary, Jane tore the top off a sugar packet. "Great. Ma having one more place to check up on me all the time," she muttered, pouring more sugar in her coffee than Angela would've approved of. "Just what I need."

Frankie had to bite his tongue to keep from lashing out. Jane had always been a bit tense, and in the last few months, it had only gotten easier to piss her off. Considering why this was, Frankie didn't believe it was his place to call Jane out for being self-centered or needlessly spiteful. He could never try putting himself in her shoes for the grief she had gone through. So, he went for a different angle, trying to make his voice as patient as possible.

"This is about what _Ma _needs, okay? This is about making sure the woman who raised us and would _die _for us has a roof over her head and a place where she feels safe."

Jane also went for a new angle: "How's she gonna afford it? I mean, have you been to Dr. Isles' office? Thousands—_tens_ of thousands of dollars' worth of stuff in there, easy, just in furniture alone. How much do you think Ma would be paying for rent?"

"Ma told me she could afford it."

"How much a month?"

"I don't know!" Frankie scowled, now looking uncomfortable. "She just told me she was sure it was her in budget!"

"Frankie, this is the woman who took a hair dryer out of her hotel because she assumed it was free!"

"Jane—"

"A _hair dryer!_"

He folded his arms defensively, though his tone struck Jane as going on offense: "So what, are you calling our mother an idiot?"

"I—no, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying she's…. she doesn't always have her head wrapped around things."

"You think she's an idiot."

"I think she doesn't think things through."

"Jane, why is this bad? We know Dr. Isles, we know we can trust her. We know Ma will likely be in a nice neighborhood, a safe one. Now she doesn't have to go searching by foot for a place or, God help us, Craigslist. You don't have to do extensive background checks on some leaser, because let's be real, here. You would do that. You don't have to do it with Dr. Isles."

There was a long silence as Jane fidgeted, and Frankie could tell she was trying to find another way to argue. He considered it a major personal achievement when she had no response except to storm past him out of the room, saying she was done talking about this with him. That was her way of saying she had no more comebacks, which was a rare feat.

A few minutes later, Maura looked up from her autopsy to see Jane walking purposefully into the morgue. "Detective Rizzoli," she said in surprise. "Surely you can't be expecting any conclusive results yet! I've hardly had a chance to start the Y-incision."

"This isn't about him," Jane said stiffly, waving at the body which had been brought in that morning. "It's about the powwow you had with Frankie and my mother yesterday. Yeah," she said when comprehension dawned on Maura's expression. "Were you thinking of bringing me in on this?"

Maura carefully put down her tools. "Jane, you weren't intentionally left out. I happened to hear Frankie mention the issue, and I talked with Angela at lunch because I've been looking for someone to lease my guest house to."

"Guest _house?_"

"Well what were you expecting, Jane? That I proposed holing your mother up in my basement?"

"No, but—"

"And I wasn't aware that your mother needed your permission for such things, anyway."

"It's not that. Look. I'm trying to be patient."

"That must be very hard for you," Maura tersely observed."

"It is! Maura, you're really…a nice person, okay? I know your heart's in a good place. But this feels inappropriate. She's my mother, and you're my co-worker."

"There's not a rule against it, if that's what you're worried about. And if you feel it would make you uncomfortable, take it up with your mother. Not me. The way I see it, we are two people simply lending a hand to each other."

"How well do you even know her? She's gonna drive you crazy."

"Hm. Well, don't assume that just because the two of you have a tense relationship that it would be the same for her and me."

"You'd never have a second's peace again. She was a helicopter mother before they even invented the term—and don't think that won't apply to you just because she didn't give birth to you. You are young enough to be her daughter, therefore, you are eligible for her nonstop presence."

Maura shrugged. "That might make a nice change." (So caught up in her own issues with Angela, Jane missed the implication that Maura considered her relationship with her own mother to be less than ideal.) During a pause in which Jane was trying to come up with another tactic, Maura asked, "You really think I'm nice, huh?"

Jane looked caught off guard by the throwback, as if Maura had just tossed a football in her face. "What? Well, I mean, yeah. You're generally soft and polite."

"Only generally?"

"Well…I hear you can be pretty bossy when you want to be," she said, intending it as a light joke to try and break the tension.

But Maura's inability to recognize most humor triumphed again. "I've been called that word before, and I don't think I like it," she said thoughtfully.

It was Jane's turn to shrug. "Why not? Means you're the boss, doesn't it?"

"Considering that it's ostensibly derivative of the word 'boss,' you might think so," Maura said. "But that wasn't what you wanted to imply, was it? 'Bossy' is a word typically used to shoot down vocal young girls; you rarely hear it attached to assertive males of the same age. I am authoritative. I'm professional. I like to be in control of my team when I am the head, which is the case here. I stand up for myself when it's warranted."

Jane held her hands up to show the peace. "Hey, I'm not trying to attack you here, Maura. I just don't want your kindness or hospitality to get taken advantage of."

"Where did you get this impression of me, anyway? I haven't been particularly kind to _you_, have I?" Maura asked. She meant it in a purely curious way, trying to think if there'd been some incredible demonstration of generosity she ahd displayed for Jane through their limited interactions. It didn't seem likely. Most of their exchanges were annoyed or angry in her recollection.

A small smile finally graced Jane's face, and despite its hesitant smallness, Maura took it as a sign of encouragement. "Maybe notto _me_, but word gets around. Eliza Taylor?" When Maura looked confused, Jane explained, "I used to work with her in vice. She's still there. She was still dressed in her um, hooker garb, and you tried to buy her a healthy lunch here in the café."

"Oh," Maura said softly. She couldn't help feeling somewhat humiliated: nobody, including Eliza, had ever bothered to correct her assumption about the woman's occupation.

Noting Maura's embarrassment, Jane was quick to say, "Eliza thought it was great. Useful, I mean. It meant her disguise was working." (_And not that I'm just incredibly naïve? _Maura wondered.) "Also, there was that whole thing were you yelled at me because of my dismissal of Stanley, remember? He's not a guy that just anyone would go to the mat for, but you took me on."

"What mat?" Maura asked blankly.

This time when Jane smiled, it wasn't the condescending or _"really?" _type that Maura had gotten accustomed to receiving from Jane when she missed something. "Wow, I've got you on something language-related for once, huh?" she chuckled in good nature. "It comes from wrestling. Bouts on the mat, you know? So going to the mat for someone…"

"Oh, of course," Maura sighed, starting to blush against her will. "I admit, sports idioms are not typically the ones that come to mind for me."

"Okay. Well, um… my point was that it takes a kind person to offer their home to a late-middle-aged divorcee they hardly know."

"It's not an entirely selfless offer," Maura pointed out. "I would charge rent."

"How much?"

Maura smiled. "Again, that's something you should ask your mother, not me. I have no obligation to disclose that information to you."

"Even if we were friends and I wanted it as a favor?"

"_Especially_ if we were friends."

This was definitely not where either of them had expected the conversation to go when Jane had first come down here, and for her part, Jane was feeling a little disoriented. How had they gotten to this place of banter and smiles instead of defensive and argumentative questioning? Whatever it was, she actually found it very … refreshing? Perhaps it was just observing the obvious, but she really liked talking to Maura in this relaxed way. She was intelligent and a little funny, in a combination that Jane hadn't encountered very much at BPD. And in being so consistently forgiving of Jane's poor attitude, Maura was always—whether she was aware of it or not—exhibiting the kindness she was apparently blind to possessing.

It wasn't until about a month and half later, though, that Jane was personally bowled over by one of Maura's gracious gifts.

By that point, Angela had gone ahead (despite Jane's warnings that it could be "difficult") and moved into Maura's guest house. Frankie and Jane had helped move her things, though Jane tried to come by only when she knew Maura was at work. For some reason, she felt very self-conscious being there when the owner of the home would be around. If she was perfectly honest with herself (and Angela, which she frequently was), this whole arrangement still felt a little uncomfortable to her. It didn't sit totally right, but at the end of the day, as Angela said,

"I am a grown woman, Jane, believe it or not. And so is Maura. We made this arrangement together and there is nothing you can do about it. You need to accept that."

Things were a bit more tense than usual between them for a while, and it wasn't until the middle of November that Jane figured it was time to try and make peace. With a readymade excuse to visit, Jane set out for Maura's part of town.

Jane always felt a little awkward coming to see her mother, only because she had to awkwardly skirt around Dr. Isles' house to get there. Even though she knew she was welcome and that it was fine, she still felt a little like she was almost trespassing. Gritting her teeth against the cold, she knocked loudly on the door. There was no answer. She tried again, and was again met with no success.

"Jane?"

She whipped around at her name, and saw Maura standing in the back door of her sizable home. "Hey, Maura. Sorry, did I, uh…?"

"I saw you pull up. I just happened to be passing my window," she quickly explained, not wanting to sound creepy. "Your mother is at the store. She said she needed something for her 'sweet tooth,' and I'm afraid nothing I keep stocked in the house was deemed satisfactory."

"Sorry," Jane sighed, apologizing for what she was sure had been Angela's picky personality. "I tried calling first, but her cellphone just went straight to voicemail. She never remembers to charge it, I don't know if you've noticed. And…" She sighed heavily, giving Jo's leash a shake. "She left the lights on, of course. I just figured she was here."

Maura folded her arms for warmth, leaning against the frame. "Entirely understandable. Did you need something?"

"Oh, it's nothing, really," Jane chuckled. Normally she would just apologize for bothering Maura and leave, but here she didn't even hesitate to explain. "Um, it's just this old toy of my dog's." She pulled a tiny stuffed animal from her pocket, and at the sight of it, Jo started to bark excitedly and jump up, trying to get it. Jane walked over to Maura, showing her how the stuffed squirrel's lower half was dangling, in danger of falling off. "It's her favorite toy, and she keeps nearly-destroying it. I threw it out once and just bought a new one, but she ignored it and went ruffling around the trash for the old one! My mother came over and saw it once, and just sewed it right up, and Jo was ecstatic to have it back. So she's fixed it up a few times, see," she said, pointing out the stitches to Maura. "Anyway, I was just gonna …y'know, see if she had a minute to fix him up again. Thought it might be a good way for us to um, talk about some stuff."

Jo's tail was wagging so fast, Jane could hardly see it. She whimpered a little pathetically, eying the toy anxiously.

"Well, she only just left," Maura said, "but you're welcome to come inside and wait for her, if you like."

"Uh… um, I don't wanna put you out."

"You wouldn't be putting me out," Maura said sincerely. "Please, it'd be nice to have someone to sit with for a moment." Jane was unconsciously twisting the stuffed toy in her hands, and Maura reached out and took it. "In fact, let me do this."

She turned and walked into the house, and Jane hurriedly followed her. "Maura, please, you don't have t—"

"I know I don't have to," she said, her tone light. "I want to. So I guess _I _should be asking _you _if it's all right. May I please fixed your dog's stuffed toy?"

There was just something so sweet about the way she asked it, like an exceptionally polite kid asking her mother if she could have another cookie. It sort of baffled Jane, who was not accustomed to people jumping at the chance to do small, silly favors like this for her. She slipped her hands into her pockets, a little uncomfortable, but Maura's eager smile finally put her over.

"Yeah, it's fine!" she laughed. "I mean, if you really want to."

"Great! I'll go get my supplies."

As Maura walked further into the house, toy in hand, Jane couldn't help noticing how immaculately kept the carpet and furniture was. This was by far the nicest house she had ever set foot in, but before she could really look around, she noticed Jo was straining to follow Maura. It occurred to her to ask: "Hey, is it okay that Jo's in here?"

"Oh, absolutely! Or—wait, should I be concerned for my furniture?"

"No."

"House-broken?"

"Yes."

"Then feel free to take off the leash, too."

Jane shrugged and got down to unleash Jo, who instantly shot after Maura. Outside of Korsak and her mother, most people (including her brothers) tended to call Jo everything from scrappy to yappy, and not as particularly favorable terms. She was used to getting sour looks from some of her neighbors, who didn't appreciate having a dog around. It warmed Jane's heart to hear Maura laughing at Jo's enthusiasm, and it made her smile to hear the clinical, often-reserved, literal doctor engaging in a one-sided conversation with the dog.

"What's the matter with your friend here, boy? She looks a little hurt, but it's nothing we can't fix. Oh, you're a cute boy, aren't you? Yes, you are! Hold on…"

Walking over to the table where Maura had set down the toy, Jane said, "Jo's actually a girl."

"Oh! Dear, I suppose I shouldn't have assumed," Maura said, rummaging in one of her cabinets for something. "It's just I heard you talking with Sargent Korsak about him—her—once, and you said her full name was Jo Friday. My mind went to the male detective from _Dragnet_, naturally."

"Naturally," Jane agreed, sitting at the table as Maura came back with a small box in hand. "I just thought it suited her. My little Josephine Friday."

"It works very nicely," Maura chuckled. The moment she sat down, Jo sprang up, putting her front paws on Maura's leg and barking.

"Shh, Jo! Sit!" Jane commanded, seriously but not sharply. "Sit, and let the…whoa."

Maura had opened the box, and instead of containing merely a needle, thread, and scissors, it housed a suture kit.

"I like to keep this on hand for emergencies," Maura explained, noting the very surprised look on Jane's face. Glancing at the toy, she said, "From what I hear of Jo's attachment to this squirrel, this situation is most _definitely _an emergency."

Jane just shook her head and laughed, but Maura knew it wasn't aimed at her in mockery. Mostly the detective was thrilled to see that Maura had actually made something that could pass for a joke. "See that, Jo?" Jane asked, scratching behind the dog's ears. "We've got a real doctor on the case! Mr. Squirrel will be fixed up in no time."

"Mr. Squirrel, hm?" Maura asked, preparing the needle. "Not terribly creative for the person who came up with naming her dog Jo Friday."

"All right, Dr. Smartypants. Any famous squirrel-related names you can think of?" Jane teased her.

"Well, that's not entirely a fair analogy. Joe Friday had nothing to do with dogs, he had to do with your line of work, which is how you selected the name. So we ought to pick another detective-related name." (Jane smiled at the mention of "we.") "Any other famous fictional detective you're particularly fond of?"

"None coming to mind at the moment," Jane murmured. "You got any?"

Really, she just wanted Maura to talk so she could have an excuse to watch her work. She'd never been in the morgue while Maura was actually working; she'd always finished the dirty work by that point or stopped. She'd have bullets or x-rays or a microscope for Jane to look at or into in one of the labs. Jane would come down for the info and leave with it.

Here, she saw the careful precision in Maura's movements. Jane knew she shouldn't have been surprised, but it always impressed her that doctors could do this so quickly and without pause, without trembling hands. Maura's work was steady and quick. A far cry from Angela's broad stitches, Maura's were practically invisible. As they were very, very small, she wound up having to do several—and that also struck Jane as so funny and endearing: Maura was going to all this trouble over a _stuffed animal _for a dog.

As she worked, she talked. "Do you enjoy detective literature? Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett? Or possibly Arthur Conan Doyle? I do like Marlowe for a squirrel, though. Do you like Perry Mason?"

"The show?"

"Oh, I meant Eric Gardener's novels. They were Chandler's inspiration, although apparently, only in genre. I don't think Perry and Philip have much in common beyond the surface, do you?"

"Mm, I guess not."

"I suppose Nancy Drew would also be an option."

"Oh man, I loved those books," Jane laughed. "I went through a phase that lasted probably two years, from like fifth to seventh grade. All I wanted for my birthdays and for Christmas were Nancy Drew books. I was kind of obsessed."

"Well, I'm sure if Nancy were a real person, she would be proud of the person her biggest fan has become," Maura said, looking up at Jane for the first time since she'd started working.

It was just a quick smile, and then her eyes returned to the task at hand. In the instant Jane had had to return the grin, her heart fluttered, so quickly as to be unnoticeable.

"What about you," Jane said. "Any primetime doctors that made you wanna go in this profession when you grew up?"

"Hardly," Maura laughed. "When I was a child, I wanted to be an artist."

"Wow, really? Bit of a leap from artist to medical examiner."

"Yes, well, my mother's an artist. That's one of her works on the mantle over there." She nodded in its direction, and frowningly assessing it, Jane privately thought she found "artist" a questionable term. "I thought it would please her if I followed her footsteps, and I genuinely enjoyed making art for some time."

She stopped there, and Jane prompted her, "Just grow out of it?"

Maura sighed softly, knowing she'd have some sort of attack if she wasn't totally honest. She was glad she at least had a task to focus on, so she wouldn't have to see Jane's pitying expression as she related,

"My mother's art is chaos, Jane. It takes a discerning eye and mind to figure them out. I was never particularly popular in school. I didn't like feeling as though I had to explain my work, what I thought and what I meant. I had such trouble asserting myself, that I just wanted so badly for my work to speak _for _me, and the communication never got through. I excelled more in math and science, and even history, where the answers were at least generally clear-cut. And working on the dead…" She swallowed, doing up the last stitch. "When I am finished, the work is plain and people see what I've done and why I am doing it. It all makes sense. _This_," she said with a final snip, "Speaks for itself."

"And you know what?" Jane said, picking up the toy and giving it a good look. Not a single stitch was visible unless Jane squinted hard. "The way you did this just now? Handled like a true artist."

It was the first time Maura had been on the receiving end of such a smile from Detective Rizzoli. It was the type that didn't have to beg to be returned; it was genuine, and beautiful. All for something so simple.

"Wanna give it a throw?" Jane asked, holding the toy in Maura's direction. "What'd we call him, Marlowe?"

Grinning, Maura took the squirrel and tossed it in an area where Jo wasn't in danger of knocking over anything priceless. The dog scampered instantly after the toy, and when she got hold of it, proceeded to shake it violently.

"Oh, my!" Maura laughed. "Well, I can see how she wears it out so easily!"

"Yeah, she's my crazy girl," Jane said, getting on her knee and beckoning Jo back to her. "Huh, Jo? Who's my crazy girl? Yeah! Awww, yeah, you are!" Maura couldn't help chuckling at the affectionate, aggressive way Jane was petting and scratching Jo. She tried to pull the toy out of her mouth, but Jo determinedly held on tight, playfully growling at Jane. "Oh, you learned your lesson, huh, girl? Not gonna let this one out of your grip for a while!"

Maura suddenly got an impulse to invite Jane to stay longer, maybe for some tea, but before she could make the offer, Jane got to her feet and said, "Well! I think we've taken up enough of the doctor's time here, Jo."

"It was my pleasure, Jane. And you're welcome to stay, if you like. If you'd like to, ah, see your mother."

"Naw, that's all right," Jane said. "I've gotta be in court early tomorrow, so… I should probably go."

"Right, the Rawlings case?"

"Yup. Wish me luck."

"You have exceptionally damning evidence and very choice witnesses. I don't think you need any luck, Jane."

"Well, okay! Guess I can't lose." She walked towards the back of the house, stooping to get Jo's leash and re-attach it to her collar. Straightening up, she said, "Thanks again, Maura. That was really sw— that was really nice of you." _You're adorable._

_You're sweet._ "Let me know if Marlowe ever needs fixing up again. I'm glad to be his surgeon."

Jane laughed and thanked her again, putting her hand on the doorknob until she heard Maura say her name again.

"Yes?"

"You're welcome any time, really. Not just in the guest house. You should come over again sometime."

Jane's smile returned. "Thanks, doc. I just might take you up on that."

* * *

**A/N**: **(if any of you technical peeps are wondering about how Angela will afford to live there, don't worry. It'll get covered eventually.) **Anyway, that scene with the dog toy is actually the first one that came to mind when I was thinking about this story (if it seems familiar to any of you, I posted it on tumblr quite a while ago). I just thought it would take something small and simple but sweet for Jane to fully warm up to Maura, and there it is. Hope you liked it :)


	6. Chapter 6

"C'mon, Jane, _what's the harm_?"

"No harm, Frost, I just don't feel like it, that's all."

He clapped a hand on her shoulder, trying to be supportive, trying to overcome his fear of being accidentally insensitive. "You ain't been yourself, Jane. You used to love quiz night at the Robber! I'm not saying there's anything wrong with whatever it is you and Jo Friday do for kicks on the weekend, but I also don't want you to think we've forgotten you or anything. It's not the same without you."

"Don't say that, Frost. C'mon. Don't feel sorry for me."

"Hey. That's not what this is. I'm your friend, Jane, and I genuinely enjoy spending time with you. We miss havin' you. And besides," he said, lowering his voice, "I heard Crowe's brother is in town and they're gonna team up. Don't you want to be able to rub something in his face?"

Crowe had walked up right then. "Rizzoli wants to rub her what in my face?" he asked, cocky grin in place as always.

"_How _are you still single?" Jane muttered, getting up from the café table with a violent shove.

"Frost, you really wanna up your game? You shouldn't invite a dumbbell like Rizzoli to your team. Why don't you go for the doc? You know, the one who actually has degrees on her wall."

"Oh, right!" Jane called after him as he walked away. "Because you really need a Ph.D. to answer sports and pop culture questions!"

Jane was on her way to the elevator before Frost came running after her. "Wait, wait, wait," he said. "Dr. Isles could totally help us out in the general fact questions. You know we never get that science crap right, and having her on the team could _really _help boost our numbers."

"Fine, I'll ask her for you," Jane grumbled, although Frost had fully intended to ask himself. But if it would get Jane to consider going, he was happy to let her do it. When the elevator arrived to take her up, she took the stairs down instead. Maybe this would provide a good excuse to get to know Maura a little bit more. Jane had yet to take the doctor up on her offer to come over, simply because she couldn't think of a casual way to do so.

_Hey, can I come over and watch a movie with you? Hey, you've some fancy wine I've always kind of been curious about trying—can I come over for a glass? Hey, my mother invited me to the guest house for some Canasta with her friends and it's making me want to end my life. Can I come impose on you? Oh, you're… not home. Where are you? Not that it's my business. Ugh._

In general, perhaps, she had spent too much time over-analyzing things lately. So as she strutted into the morgue, she decided not to beat around the bush and just get right to it: "Hey, Maura! How'd you like to go to a trivia night at the Dirty Robber this fine evening?"

Maura still wasn't accustomed to people like Jane, who just abruptly jumped in with questions like this instead of first engaging in some sort of polite, generic exchange. It used to make her feel a little ill at ease, but the more it happened, the more she felt like it could be indicative of something nice. Something like friendship. She looked up from the autopsy table and failed to hide her enthusiasm at Jane's proposition.

"What kind of trivia?"

"Lots of stuff, I dunno. Frost and Korsak are goin', and I think they could probably use a brainiac on the team to help 'em bag it."

"Bag…"

"The win."

"What do you play for?"

"Usually free drinks and movie vouchers. Let me guess," she laughed, when Maura couldn't help making a face. "You're not one for the movies, are you?"

"_Au contraire_, Jane. I love movies. That's why I hate wasting the money on projects that do nothing but contribute to their status as appealing to the lowest common denominator. It's an art form that should be celebrated, and instead, it's used to house jokes about bodily functions or otherwise pandering material."

Jane folded her arms and leaned against the wall, surveying Maura. "Y'know, I don't think I've seen you this annoyed since we first started working together."

Maura finally smiled at that, although she looked a little guilty. "I'm sorry. I know it makes me sound like a snob…"

"Not a snob. Just discerning in your entertainment choices. I guess you like documentaries?

"If they're well done," Maura said agreeably. "I enjoy learning new things, but a narrative film can teach you just as much as something professing to be facts. You know you have to take every documentary with a grain of salt, don't you?"

"Uh...I guess?" Jane said, though she looked like she wasn't sure what Maura was talking about.

"The feasibility of representing reality on film has been debated by cinema theorists for decades," Maura said. "Essentially, ever since the medium was invented. There were those in favor of narratives, and those in favor of 'actualities,' represented by Edison and the Lumiere brothers respectively. The 'actualities' have of course led to documentary filmmaking, although the late 19th-century films of course lacked our contemporary approaches to editing and cinematography which make documentaries a much more manipulative genre than they lead people to believe." She was about to continue in this vein until she saw the bemused look on Jane's face, who had clearly not been expecting a lecture on film when she came down here. Fighting a blush, Maura cleared her throat and said, "_If _I won free movie passes, I would simply try to be discriminating and patient, and wait for something that looked like it was worth seeing."

"Or, because the tickets would be free, you could go _nuts _and see something totally stupid that you'd never go to otherwise!"

Jane had said it brimming with enthusiasm, but Maura still looked quite serious: "Wasting time is almost as bad as wasting money—maybe worse. You can make back money you lose. You can't make back time."

The solemnity with which Maura said it might the hair on Jane's neck stand on end. She couldn't quite place the discomfort, but the remark had caught her off guard, and it was difficult for her to come up with a smart response right away. "Well," she said, fiddling with the hem of her blazer, "it can… sometimes it can be fun for the sake of the company."

"Hm?"

"My—uh… Casey and I used to watch stupid movies sometimes. Just to make fun of them, have a good time, y'know."

Maura's face fell a little bit, and her stomach ached at the thought that she'd just derided one of Jane's favorite pastimes with her deceased husband. "Oh," she said softly, and Jane met her gaze. "Well. Yes, I'm sure that could be fun in its own way."

An awkward silence settled over them like a bad smell that had somehow crept into the room; Jane was making all the signs of someone who was trying to do anything but rudely pinch her nose to avoid it. "Yeah," she finally sighed. "Well, uh, the prize might be something totally different anyway. Could be passes to some artsy-fartsy theater instead," she joked, and Maura smiled at the funny expression she'd never heard before. "Think you want in?"

"I…I would love to go," Maura stammered. "Given, of course, that Frost and Korsak understand if we _do _win and the prize _is _movie vouchers, I will fully expect them to attend a movie that's artsy, and not…"

"Fartsy," Jane laughed, when Maura couldn't bring herself to say the word. "You're a funny one, Maura Isles. I'll go tell 'em the good news."

"What time should I be there?"

"Eight on the dot."

It was half past 8:00 when a knock sounded at Jane's door. She glanced through the peephole and was surprised to see Maura, of all people, standing there. Before she could think through the reasons for why this might be, she felt impressed to open the door, and so she did.

"Hey."

Maura's eyes lingered on Jane's tousled hair and the bags under her eyes. "Hi."

"What're you doing here?"

"I aimed to ask you the same thing. I was under the impression that you would be at The Dirty Robber."

"Well, doc, that means you assumed. Lemme guess. Korsak and Frost sent you after me."

"We drew straws," Maura said, trying to sound lofty. "…I lost."

Jane laughed and groaned at the same time. "Look, Maura. It was nice of you to come all the way over here, and I… I mean, I guess one of those clowns gave you my address?"

"Clowns? At the Dirty Robber?" Maura asked, looking alarmed.

"Geez, doc. I meant Korsak or Frost!"

"Oh. Yes, Korsak gave it to me."

"Well, it was nice of you to come over, but I just, um …I don't feel like going out tonight."

Maura nodded. Frost had told her to expect this sort of response and given her some language to refute it, but in seeing Jane's glumness, all of Frost's words somehow disintegrated, leaving Maura's mind a blank. All she wanted were the right words to throw around Jane like a blanket, and she found herself coming up short. At that moment, she heard a yipping sound, and Jo Friday came running over.

"Oh, don't let her get out!" Jane said, crouching to try and grab the dog.

"I got her," Maura said, quickly stooping and snatching Jo at her front legs. She awkwardly picked up the dog, and Jo tried twisting around to lick her face in greeting. "Oh, my!" Maura laughed, jerking her head away. "You're an enthusiastic creature, aren't you?"

"She likes you," Jane observed, giving Jo a scratch behind the ears. "Bet she remembers you're the one who fixed up her toy."

"How _is _Marlowe?"

"Truth? He may need stitches again soon."

"Well, the doctor is always in," Maura said, struggling to keep her hold on the squirming Jo. "Jane?"

"Hm?"

"I just wanted to tell you that I understand," she said seriously, and Jane's hand froze on Jo's back. "About not wanting to go out and be with people, I mean. Surrounding yourself in that environment by choice is very different from throwing yourself into work, which probably provides a welcome sort of… distraction from your grief." She wondered briefly if this was getting into an area that was too touchy, but as Jane hadn't snapped or said anything yet, Maura felt brave enough to continue: "Frost and Korsak are just worried about you."

"I know," Jane said shortly.

"I'm not."

"You're…?"

Maura shrugged. "I still mostly know the textbook version of you, Jane. Frost and Korsak have more of a history with you than I do. They knew what you were like… before. They have a personal understanding of you that I'm only just beginning to reach. From what I gather, your staying away on nights like this is uncommon. That worries them. It doesn't worry me, because I can see this more objectively than they can, and your behavior makes sense to me." There was a small pause. "Considering."

Jane was breathing deeply, her lips tightly closed and her eyes focused on Jo Friday. She didn't notice it, but her grip on the doorknob was uncommonly tight, as if she were preparing to swing it shut in Maura's face at any moment.

Instead: "D'you wanna come in?"

Maura silently accepted the invitation, stepping inside. Once Jane shut the door after her, Maura finally bent down to put Jo back on the floor, and it was a welcome relief. Seeing all the hair that had been left behind on Maura's pricy-looking blouse, Jane instantly apologized and went to get her something to brush it off with. She came back with a dish towel, which she realized was probably not the most effective choice.

"Uh—I might have a lint roller somewhere in my room, hold on," she said.

"Jane, it's all right," Maura called after her, and Jane stopped. "A little dog hair won't hurt me."

"Well…hold on, I'm gonna look away," Jane muttered.

She turned and hurried down the hall to the bedroom, leaving Maura behind. An empty beer bottle sat on the coffee table, which was strewn with case files Jane had brought home and a few candy wrappers. A take-out bag was on the floor, which Maura noticed looked oddly clean in comparison to everything else. In fact, it looked as though it might have been vacuumed fairly recently. Jo had gone to curl up in a little bed beneath an end table, which had stacks of bills and catalogues on top of it, threatening to fall at any moment. At last, Maura's eyes fell upon what she'd been looking for: a book case.

There were a few empty spots on the shelves which might have housed picture frames in the past. Without them, the case looked a little disjointed, with some of the books lying flat instead of propped up. The two bottom rows were empty, and the top two fairly disheveled.

_Treasure Island. The Red Badge of Courage. A Light in the Attic. The Screwtape Letters_. A biography of Theodore Roosevelt, a collection of short stories about Christmas, and what appeared to be a thoroughly illustrated book on the Arms & Armor wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These took priority on the top two shelf; the next one down was noticeably dustier, and before Maura could get a closer look, footsteps heralded Jane's return.

"Sorry I couldn't find anything," she said, and Maura straightened up and turned to look at her. "Believe it or not, my room's even more of a mess than it is out here."

"That's a frightening thought," Maura said, and Jane laughed lightly. "I'm sorry, I hope you don't think I was being intrusive. I just always find it interesting to see what other people like to read."

"Yeah?" Jane said curiously, walking over as if she had forgotten the book case even existed.

"Yes. When I was a kid and got invited to parties—you know, out of obligation—I would often end up studying people's libraries instead of socializing. I found more comfort in books."

"You're not one of those weirdos who goes around _smelling _books, are you?" Jane asked, only half-jokingly. She couldn't help laughing when the look on Maura's face said she was guilty as charged. "Aw, c'mon!" she crowed, snatching _Treasure Island _off the shelf and opening it. She rifled through the pages, inhaling deeply. "That what turns you on, Dr. Isles?"

"Incidentally, yes, books _do _turn me on," she said flatly. "Not the smells, per se, but I find an interest in literature very alluring."

"Mm," Jane said, for lack of a better response. "Yeah, I guess I'm not much of a reader. Haven't got the time, really. Whenever I come home from work, I don't really feel like burying myself in something heavy, y'know? This was my favorite as a kid, though. We had to read it in high—no, middle school."

"Pirates and buried treasure," Maura chuckled. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you were drawn to such a text!"

"Sure beat the hell out of Steinbeck," Jane answered. "At least in my book. D'you know, I…" She fumbled with the book in her hands, and decided to drop the thought. "Um… yeah, I guess most of these are nostalgic. Casey was reading the Teddy bio. Apparently that guy was a real man's man, you know? And the Arms & Armor thing was a gift from my dad. Whenever we wanted to go on a nice trip, we'd go to New York. When we were young, I mean. And my Ma really wanted to class us up and take us to the Met—expose us to some real class, you know? And so of course, all Tommy and Frankie and I wanted to look at were the old guns and the rifles and the armor."

"Oh, gosh," Maura laughed.

"Yeah, Ma was sorta pissed," Jane said. "I mean, I think she was glad for our enthusiasm, but she was annoyed that I didn't seem as enraptured with their fashion collection or just the normal friggin' paintings and stuff. You said your mom's an artist, right? You must've gotten dragged to your fair share of museums as a kid."

"I'm not sure 'dragged' would be the proper word to use in my case," Maura pointed out, and Jane nodded her understanding. "I love art. I've always loved art. It never felt like a chore to me." She had been about to launch into another somber monologue about the intricacy and beauty of the myriad of exhibits she'd seen, but Jane was clearly suppressing a laugh. "Do you find my interest in art that amusing?"

Jane shook her head. "No, I'm sorry, I was just remembering something else. More fartsy than artsy."

"What is it?" Maura asked. She couldn't help it. Jane's enjoyment was catching.

"The first time we went to the Met, Tommy was only six or seven. I don't know if they've restructured it or anything, but it used to be this one entrance took you right into the gallery with all the Greek and Roman statues—and they're all pretty much naked, right? So we go in, and there's these real high ceilings and everything and it's this nice, quiet, peaceful Sunday—and we get in there, and Tommy's eyes go wide as dinner plates and yells 'BUTTS!' _so _freaking loud, it echoes everywhere."

Laughter has been interrupting her speech sporadically up to this point, but now she can't help getting some of it out as she remembers the looks on her parents' faces: Angela's mortification, and Frank's complete and utter amusement. She steals a glance at Maura, worried that the prim doctor might have found this story supremely rude, but Maura is laughing as well.

"And she shushes him, you know, but then of course we take a few steps and Tommy sees them from the _other _side," Jane goes on, almost fighting for breath as she remembers, "and his eyes go wide again, but Ma went ahead and clamped her hand over his mouth to shut him up."

"I'm surprised she ever took you guys back there," Maura said. This was an unusual sensation for her: her cheeks were feeling a little sore from all this smiling.

It hadn't happened to Jane in much longer. "Well, the kicker was when we left. We had to go out the same way, and before we got to the staircase, my Pop just yelled 'dicks!' and ran down the stairs. My Ma was sure none of us would ever be able to show our faces in New York again." It took a few moments for their laughter to die out, and when it did, Jane finally thought to ask, "Do you want a drink or something? I've got beer, water, uh… maybe some orange juice."

"Water would be nice, actually, thank you."

"Sure." As she got a couple of glasses from the kitchen, Jane asked, "So where do you stand on the whole Kindle thing? If all books are electronic in the future, that'd mean you couldn't creep as easily on other people's collections."

"That is true," Maura said. "And I admit, I do find that rather sad. I can absolutely recognize the economic benefits of such a device, as well as how handy it can be in travel—now you don't have to worry about where to stuff five or six books on a flight."

"_Such _a common complaint of mine," Jane said, bringing back Maura's water and sitting on the couch with her own glass.

Maura daintily sat a safe distance from Jane on the same couch, propping up against the cleanest-looking throw pillow. "But really, though. I think it closes such a unique and important part of human contact. If you see someone sitting on a bus reading their phone, or their iPad, you would never try to look over and see what they were looking at, would you? Much less ask them about it? I once had a two-hour conversation with a man on a train in Italy because I noticed she had just finished reading _Mrs. Dalloway_. We talked through our whole ride about Virginia Woolf, and it was wonderful. It even ended in a date," she added, and Jane tipped her glass to her. "That's the sort of thing I'd miss, I suppose."

"Hm. Well, feel free to stalk my books any time," Jane said. She leaned over and reached for her remote, flipping on the TV. "Frankie got me hooked up with Netflix a few months ago. I think it was mostly in an effort to brush me up on my X Box skills so we could play together, but it's been pretty handy. Dare I show you what's in my 'Recently Viewed' tab, or would that be _too _personal for you?"

"How about this," Maura said, gently taking the remote from Jane's hand. "You let _me _pick something for us to watch instead."

"Mph. Fine," Jane said, and Maura had no idea that she was the first person Jane had ever instantly conceded control of the remote to. "But nothing foreign, okay? I don't feel like reading any subtitles right now."

"Any other restrictions?"

"No musicals. Nothing made before 1980."

"Jane!"

"What?"

"Do you realize how much you're limiting your view?!"

"Because I won't watch _Hello Dolly_?"

"Objectively speaking, _Hello Dolly _is a horrid blight in what is otherwise often an exceptionally enjoyable genre of cinema," Maura said.

"Ughhhh," Jane said, rolling her eyes. "You're exhausting me just be the way you _talk _about movies! They're movies, Maura! Just movies!"

"If you see them as 'just' anything, I think that's a problem."

Jane narrowed her eyes and sat up a little. "You were one of those kids whose favorite Disney movie was _Fantasia_, weren't you?"

Maura pursed her lips. "I suppose you found it boring?"

"Kids don't want to watch cartoons for classical music, Maura. They want to see talking animals and pretty princesses. You know, fun stuff?"

"Is _Fantasia _on Netflix?" Maura asked, going to the search box.

"Hey! No! Come on, Maura!"

"All right, fine," Maura said, scrolling down to the list of suggested classic films.

"Hey, I said nothing from before 1980."

"Allow me to hypothesize why: you think they would be dull."

"That's only one reason, doctor. I also know women are treated like crap in those old movies. They never get to do anything cool. They're always housewives. Or they're dumb, they're damsels in distress, and they're objectified."

"Thank goodness we don't see any of that in movies anymore," Maura said.

It took Jane a moment to get it, but then she glanced over and saw the unimpressed look in Maura's eyes. "Wow. Did you just use sarcasm? I'm impressed, doctor. I've been rubbing off on you."

"Let's make a deal," Maura said. "We are going to watch _His Girl Friday_. If you don't laugh once, I'll never suggest an old movie again. If you do enjoy it, then you'll see what you've been missing all these years."

"Look, I like _some _old movies, okay? John Wayne and stuff. Those are all right."

"John Wayne?" Maura laughed.

"Why is that funny?"

"If you want to see some of the more sexist representations of women in classic film, well, look no further."

"My Pop likes his stuff, okay? Kinda grew up watching them. I can't help it."

"Well, I'll be curious for your opinion on this non-John Wayne film."

Jane sighed heavily as Maura pressed play, as if she'd just been asked to do manual labor. "So we're watching this, then?"

"Just sit back and enjoy it, Jane," Maura said.

"Fine," Jane mumbled, getting comfortable. "But only if _you _'sit back' too. Please tell me you're not gonna just sit there for the whole movie like you're having tea with the Queen of England. Relax!"

It took a few minutes, but in time, Maura was lying back, mimicking Jane with her feet up on the coffee table and Jo Friday curled between them.

* * *

**A/N**: This is a small thing, but have you noticed the fic trend that makes Maura exclusively enjoy documentaries? I don't like the notion that equates intellectuals with a dislike for anything but that genre. Honestly I think someone who loves Constance's modern art would enjoy well-done films just as much. Anyway, thanks for reading!


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